At one point during Sunday’s 34-20 victory over Jacksonville Lance Kendricks said he turned to tight ends coach Rob Boras and said: “This reminds me of a Big Ten game.”“Just because it’s run run run run pass” Kendricks explained later.

It wasn’t exactly like that although the Rams did have more rushing attempts (36) than passes thrown (34) — a rarity in today’s NFL. But the game did have a smash-mouth element to it when it came to how the Rams attacked the line of scrimmage.

Namely they muscled-up with multiple tight end sets. When all was said and done the Rams used two or more tight ends on 49 of 72 offensive plays against the Jaguars or 68 percent of the time.

That isn’t what most fans and media observers expected when looking at the 2013 Rams. Not after they selected four wide receivers in the past two drafts including No. 8 overall pick Tavon Austin last April. But after a 1-3 start in which the Rams had next to no success running the football the Rams wanted to alter the script against Jacksonville.

“We made a big emphasis on wanting to run the ball and we did anything we could to do that” said Kendricks who played his college ball in the Big Ten at Wisconsin. “So we ran a lot of (extra tight end) personnel. We had an effective game. I think all the tight ends had all-around good games.”

They certainly were on the field a lot. When all was said and done tight ends Kendricks Jared Cook and Cory Harkey were on the field for a combined 143 offensive plays. The team’s top four wide receivers — Austin Chris Givens Austin Pettis and Brian Quick — were on the field for 147 plays.